A messy and travel worn young man stumbled through the entrance of the wolf den.
This man wore the tower robe of the Sky Tower. The crest on his sleeve indicated that he was a tower mage. He had black hair and dark blue eyes, nearly black. He had a strong and sturdy build with a muscular physique. Aside from the bag hanging to his side, he had nothing else, no wand and no weapon. His black hair was messy, and his eyes were red, flickering with slight madness.
After escaping the snowstorm, the man fell to his knees, exhausted.
He had been walking through the snow for days. When he had run out of supplies, he just walked around aimlessly, hoping to find food as soon as possible.
When he found this cave, he entered without hesitation.
Owen coughed violently, spitting out some blood. He was clearly not in good condition. He looked around the cave, racking his brains for what to do next, when suddenly, the strong aroma of food drifted to his nose.
His eyes shot open, and he turned his attention to the back of the cave where Petra and the girls were eating hotpot.
He originally planned to assess the other party before deciding how to deal with them, but the moment he saw Petra's face, he felt something in his mind snap.
"It's you!!"
Owen's roar echoed throughout the cave.
Petra nibbled on a chicken skewer, wondering if this savage was talking about her. She didn't seem to know him, right...?
"You damn traitor! The one who abandoned their god given duty to protect the world!"
'What a big title.'
Petra continued nibbling.
"Little bastard! Your refusal to stand as a Heaven's Chosen is a crime deserving nothing else but death!"
'Lunatic.'
Nibble nibble nibble...
"As the 'Tower Seeker' of the Sky Tower, I order you to follow me back to the central region and receive your punishment!"
'Nom nom nom, I'm probably going to torture this guy...'
Owen completely ignored his injuries and aggressively stomped over to Petra.
"Do you hear me! Brat, you can't hide any longer! You three as well!" Owen pointed to the three maid girls. "You are conspirators! Traitors! Heretics! You cannot avoid trial!"
"Uncle, are you sure you have the right person? I'm just a little girl who lives in the forest."
"Nonsense! Since you want to play dumb, then don't blame me!" Owen gritted his teeth, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a square stone.
Petra's eyes widened before a flash of white light enveloped her.
A moment later, the three maids stood there, alone.
Petra had completely disappeared.
Rose and Wind were shocked, but Nebula narrowed her eyes.
"Prison Stone...?"
Owen's face twisted into a ferocious grin. "Hah, looks like you know your stuff! If you ever want to see this brat again, then you will obediently come back with me to the tower!"
Nebula narrowed her eyes.
This got troublesome very quickly.
"That's assuming we don't kill you." Rose sneered.
Nebula stopped her from rushing out. "The prison stone can't be opened by just anyone. You need a space affinity to let things out."
Wind grimaced, "You mean we can't open it?"
Nebula was silent.
"Can't we just capture him and force him to open it?" Rose asked.
Nebula shook her head. "He's not a space mage, he can only use it to catch people, not release them."
Wind and Rose frowned in unison.
Owen burst out laughing, his contempt almost palpable. "You're assuming that you can beat me!"
Owen flicked his wrist and summoned a short wand from his sleeve.
He waved the wand, and the surrounding stone walls all began to deform, almost like he had given life to the stone cave. "You're already trapped! What can you ants possibly do to me! Hahaha!"
The cave entrance slammed shut, cutting them off from the outside world.
"You damn playthings should know your place!"
Owen flicked his wand, and the surrounding stone extended like countless blunt spears.
Wind cried as she was struck in the back. Her frail body was blasted forward, embedding itself in the stone wall. The surrounding stone morphed and locked her in place.
Rose dodged the initial attack, leaping up and landing on the stone spear. She dashed down the stone spear like a cat, quickly closing the distance between Owen and herself.
Owen smirked.
He motioned for an elbow strike, and the entire wall thrust forward, slamming the cat away. Rose grimaced as she was shot through the air, followed by a series of stone tentacles that each carried the momentum of a hammer.
When Rose landed, over twenty stone tentacles struck the spot where she fell.
Owen snapped his head around, catching the hidden girl flashing through the tentacles shadow.
He flicked his wand, then retracted it, and thrust his free hand forward in an open claw gesture.
The stone floor around Nebula shot out in the form of hundreds of thin spikes. Nebula's legs were caught and empaled, almost 'stitching' her to the ground.
Her face darkened, and an unknown light slowly started to swim in her eyes.
Right before Nebula got serious, she saw something.
Nebula held back, and Owen took the opportunity to raise up the cave floor and whip her violently against the wall. Nebula had been slammed against the wall, her left leg and left arm completely crushed. Rose and Wind were not much better. Rose was filled with broken bones, and Wind was suffocating under the constantly tightening stone bindings.
Both girls soon fell unconscious.
"You ants should thank me for this lesson! If I sold you to the brothels now, who would even want you! Hahaha—Ka-Crack!"
The quiet environment was interrupted by a sudden sound.
Where Owens voice should have existed alone, the sudden crisp clap of something cleanly shattering echoed in the cave.
Owen looked down at the Prison Stone.
"Huh, How? - Boom!!"
The prison stone exploded, tearing Owen's waist into a bloody mess and sending him flying across the room. He slammed into the far wall, a tyrannical force ripping through his body. Blood rushed up his throat, and an unimaginable pain shot through his body. He only realised that his right arm had been completely shattered when he tried to reach for the medicine.
"Ahhh! Damn damn damn!"
Where he once stood, a crack in space was slowly widening.
Owen had no time to worry about his injuries, his full attention was focused on the horrific aura that was slowly leaking from the crack in space.
'Petra's' hand reached out of the crack and pulled herself through using the edge of the broken void.
Unlike the normal Petra, the current her was far from cute.
The small figure was wreathed in a viscous black aura of chaotic and impossible energy, vaporizing not just the air, but anything around it that it touched, even space. Her simple presence seemed to be rejected by the world, causing something in the unseen world to continuously attempt and fail to reject her, resulting in an unheard vibration of ringing bells and shaking space.
Her green hair was turning black from the roots, and the black of her eyes was escaping from her pupils. Her black eyes were like cold and bottomless pits, an abyssal emotion swelling deep within their unreachable depths. Her gaze was hers, but not hers alone. Something was looking through her eyes, peering from an unknown place.
The surrounding space seemed to melt as she moved from the prison space back into normal space.
This was not the power of the Emerald Dragon.
This was not the power of the Witch Bloodline.
This was the power of the King's Hand, a living declaration of the end, and the only way Petra could think of to escape the Prison Stone.
Owen screamed in horror.
"W-e-what the hell is that! Your no Hero! You are a monster! A monster! A DEMON! YOU ARE THE CALAMITY!!" Owen could feel it, whatever this was, it was far more terrifying than any calamity that had ever existed.
"Petra! Focus, none of us are dead!" Nebula's call came from the side.
'Petra' looked over. When she saw Nebula's mutilated limbs, Nebula realised that she might have made a mistake.
That terrifying aura suddenly skyrocketed.
The cave began to deform and melt. Although it didn't look much different, Owen could 'feel' that the surrounding cave was no longer 'stone'. It had changed at a conceptual level.
Petras mind was in a mess. Her thoughts were both slow and fast, almost like she was filtering certain information. She felt bloated, like her body was slowly filling with water, slowly becoming heavier and amassing 'weight'. Her steps were heavy, leaving behind deep imprints with each step.
The impossible black aura began to materialize into 'something else', something more chaotic, something more eldritch.
Nebula felt the full fury of her 'guardian' for the first time.
She understood that her father didn't only want someone who could protect her.
Petra gritted her teeth.
Although her mind was slowly descending into the abyss, she didn't lose her mind.
Fury mixed with rationality and began pushing some limit.
Before the end could come, Petra took a deep breath. She staggered not towards Nebula, not towards Owen, but she struggled to reach her mini laboratory.
Petra violently cut her wrist, almost removing her hand in the process. She let her blood mix with the complete drug she had been working on just before Owen arrived.
Her blood was not red.
What fell from her wrist was a black stream so dark that one would easily find it even in the dark. The quantity of 'blood' that spilled from her wrist was far more than what her body should have had.
After the black blood slowly turned back to red, Petra regained a bit of rationality.
Petra retrieved the finished drug and looked over.
Despite the abyssal madness having retreated, her black eyes were no less dark.
Owen watched in horror as this abomination that pretended to be human slowly walked towards him.
If he could muster up the will to resist, he would find a mental strength far surpassing his master's crushing down on him and firmly holding him in place.
Petra ripped open his jaw and stuffed the drug, glass, and all down his throat.
Owen screamed in agony as she dragged him over toward the wolf king and tossed him down. Petra crushed his limbs and let him fall, flailing around with his broken body.
Her bottomless eyes looked at the wolf king.
"Eat!"
The cage surrounding the wolf king disappeared.
The wolf king felt like this 'human' could force him to eat it with a mere thought, but she seemed to be testing him. The fear felt by the wolf king far exceeded Owens. Unlike Owen, the wolf king had incredible instincts. When Petra first emerged from the prison space, it felt like this monster could easily eclipse his 'father', the one who cast the Curse of Winter. Not only that, but what emerged from the prison space was only a small portion of this monster. The dimension that was once called the prison space had been 'tainted' by something terrifying, becoming just another nail of the King's Hand.
It would not resist.
The wolf king tore through flesh and bone, devouring the man, completely ignoring his heart-wrenching screams. It was slow and methodical, making sure to please this 'human' and help calm her rage.
Petra's eyes flickered for a moment, before snapping her head towards an empty space in the void. Her bottomless black eyes peered into the empty air, eventually finding what she was looking for.
"So, it was you? Then die!"
Petra flicked her wrist, and 'something' disappeared into the unseen world.
After a long moment of silence…
Petra let out a long breath. Like an overheating engine that was suddenly cooled, billowing black smoke flooded out from her mouth like waves, dissipating into the air. Her body returned to normal, but she was suddenly overcome by an unimaginable hunger.
Petra had regained her rationality.
The little girl turned her attention to the three maids.
The three girls fell unconscious.
Wind and Rose were badly injured, one having many broken bones, and the other having their wrists and throat crushed. As for Nebula, Nebula had the worst injuries. Nebula was covered in cuts and bruises, with many broken bones, and one arm and one leg had been completely crushed.
Petra didn't need to think. She took out the second of the three medicines that Elena had left her, quickly stuffing it into Nebula's mouth. After helping her lie down, she turned her attention to Wind and Rose. Petra carefully bandaged their wounds. She fed them the best medicine she had, making sure that they would be ok.
After making sure the three girls wouldn't be crippled, Petra finally had a chance to look around.
She saw for the first time what this new King's Hand could do.
The cave was still a cave, but it had been bent and deformed, almost like an abstract painting. The spot where she emerged from the prison space was stained black, affected by the residual aura from the King's Hand. With this incident, Petra had discovered that the King's Hand had evolved to such a level that normal materials would turn to dust on contact. This couldn't even be called a poison anymore. It was like a flame that only left behind signs of its melting 'heat'.
Petra turned towards the wolf king.
The substance that the wolf king had eaten was a mixture of the strengthening medicine, the mutation medicine, the leaking aura of the King's Hand, and Petras blood. The reason she used the black blood in the medicine was because she felt that if she just discarded it, something terrible might have appeared.
She had no idea what would happen.
Because she used her blood, Petra was sure that this would be her seventh poisonous beast, as long as her constitution allowed it.
Petra suddenly heard the wolf king roar.
The ten-meter-tall beast began to tremble violently. Its body began to break apart, like layers of an ice sculpture, falling to the ground in sheets. Its flesh bulged up and cracked, causing it to roar in pain.
Petra watched intently.
'Her Blood' didn't only include the materials needed for her constitution to make a connection. It also passed on her bloodline as an Emerald Dragon and a Witch.
The fur of the wolf king slowly fell off, and its body began to expand at a rapid speed.
Its body enlarged into the same sphere as before, but unlike the previous subjects, who had doubled, the wolf king tripled in size, reaching a diameter of thirty meters. The surface of the ice 'cocoon' was clearly different as well. Unlike the large snowballs the other beasts had transformed into, this time it looked more like an egg, an egg that was covered in complicated layers of runes. These runes seemed to seep out of its skin, disappearing into the void almost like they were evaporating.
Petra spent the rest of the night watching over the evolution of the wolf king and making sure that the girls were stable.
When the sun finally rose, the ice cocoon began to condense.
It compressed itself to the size of five meters, still much taller than Petra.
When the wolf king finished reforming, it was completely different.
The large white wolf stood tall and imposing. Its body was covered in thick fluffy white hair, and its mane was tinted the same green color as Petra's twin tails, matching its now emerald tail. Two large crystal horns sprouted from the side of its head, pointing forward. Waves of white mist bellowed from its four feet and maw.
If it wasn't for the little girl flashing around it, pulling at its fur, and climbing up its head, this wolf king would look like the beast of legends.
The poison of this beast was called 'Ice Age' by Petra. Unlike the previous few experiments, this poison was far more complicated and powerful. Perhaps it drew from the characteristics of the Curse of Winter and the King's Hand, but it adopted some properties from both. This poison would infect the landscape, transforming it into a land of ice and snow, and then it would start spawning mutated Ice elementals from this newly created environment. These ice elementals were completely under the wolf kings control, even having the ability to devour and grow when eating a target. Perhaps it picked it up from the King's Hand, but the new wolf king's poison would spread uncontrollably after something was infected, using these lesser ice elementals as a way to propagate. Petra might be the only one who could control it, aside from the wolf king himself.
Petra also felt the connection between her and her seventh poisonous beast. Unlike before, there was no information on the wolf king. He was a completely new species.
Petra nodded in appreciation.
If anything good came out of last night, it was this beast.
Petra named it the Calamity Wolf.